Oct. 25: Peace Unveiled

October 25, 2011

Watch the full episode:

When the U.S. troop surge was announced in late 2009, women in Afghanistan knew that the ground was being laid for peace talks with the Taliban. Peace Unveiled follows three women who immediately began to organize to make sure that women’s rights don’t get traded away in the deal. One is a savvy parliamentarian who participated in writing the Afghan constitution that guarantees equality for women; another, a former midwife who is one of the last women’s rights advocates alive in Kandahar; and the third, a young activist who lives in a traditional family in Kabul. Convinced that the Taliban will have demands that jeopardize women’s hard-earned gains, they maneuver against formidable odds to have their voices heard in a peace jirga and high peace council. We go behind Kabul’s closed doors as the women’s case is made to U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer, General David Petraeus and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who promises the women that “peace and justice can’t come at the cost of women and women’s lives.” But will this promise be kept? Narrated by Tilda Swinton.

I Came to Testify
The moving story of how a group of 16 women who had been imprisoned and raped by Serb-led forces in the Bosnian town of Foca broke history’s great silence – and stepped forward to take the witness stand in an international court of law.Pray the Devil Back to Hell
The astonishing story of the Liberian women who took on the warlords and regime of dictator Charles Taylor in the midst of a brutal civil war.The War We Are Living
In Cauca, a mountainous region in Colombia’s Pacific southwest, two extraordinary Afro-Colombian women are braving a violent struggle over their gold-rich lands.War Redefined
The capstone of Women, War & Peace challenges the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain through incisive interviews with leading thinkers, Secretaries of State and seasoned survivors of war and peace-making.

As a student of women’s courage in the midst of a book on the subject, I LOVE this series. However, I missed last night. Can’t seem to find where on the site I can watch it. Can you help? Thanks much. Hope to meet all of you at a future event!

The program fails to even mention the progress in women’s rights and modernization made in Afghanistan during the 1980-s by USSR-supported government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_rights_in_Afghanistan): “..Throughout the 1970s and 1980s … Afghanistan made significant advances towards modernization. Minorities of women were able to hold jobs as scientists, teachers, doctors, and civil servants and had a considerable amount of freedom with significant educational opportunities…”

While many of the reforms during this period were ill conceived and transplanting communism into semi-feudal society was not a good idea, the reversal of these secular trends was a direct result of the US-supported islamic fundamentalist insurgency, culminating with Taliban coming to power five years after Soviets left.

Bottom line, Afghanistan was sacrificed for the sake of giving the Soviets their Vietnam – it was enough to call Taliban “freedom fighters” and keep them on the US payroll until 1999. Let’s not be hypocritical and have some historical perspective on this issue.

I was very moved by this story. I thought it really conveyed the frustrations and the struggles of the Afghan women, as well as Hillary Clinton’s in wanting to better the lives of Afghan women, children and its society. What I found most interesting was the attitude of the Abassador and his wife. I thought she was belittling to the women and obviously not in tune with their struggles. Her suggestions were stupid!!! The women are not living in the past, they have to remind people of their recent history under the Taliban, because the Taliban has not paid for their criimes and are now being courted by Karzai in the policy making of the country. So, the Afghan women’s past, under the Taliban, may likely be their future!!! The Abassador’s wife was pathetic and she should have just not said anything. Again this proves that Abassadorships are fluff posts, consuming government money, which could be used to actually help people and make a difference. All that said I have learned so much about women all over the world with this series and am very thankful that we live in a country that shows like this can be aired. Thank you very much.

Funders

Major funding for Women, War & Peace is provided by the 40x50, a group of visionary donors who have provided key support for this initiative; Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Foundation to Promote Open Society; Ford Foundation; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Swanee Hunt Family Fund of the Denver Foundation; Starry Night, an Anne Delaney Charitable Fund; Lauren Embrey, Gayle Embrey and Embrey Family Foundation; The Atlantic Philanthropies; Dobkin Family Foundation; Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family; Gruber Family Foundation; Bill Haney; Pierre N. Hauser; Susan Disney Lord; Partridge Foundation, a John and Polly Guth Charitable Fund; Vital Projects Fund; Elizabeth H. Weatherman and The Warburg Pincus Foundation; The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation; Cynda Collins Arsenault; Barbara H. Zuckerberg; Sigrid Rausing Trust; more than 1,500 Members of THIRTEEN; and Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for I Came to Testify is also provided by National Endowment for the Humanities, and for Peace Unveiled by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Funding for the online Education Guide is provided by The Overbrook Foundation.